This is a series of objects that confront and reclaim sonic space. It starts from a very simple observation: that silence is never a dialogue, but an imposition. Silencing is an attitude observed in a lot of instances in society, but more often than not it concerns issues of gender, class and ethnicity. Latin americans in the US, turkish and middle-eastern people in northern Europe, women in general – these are all subjects of constant angry looks, reprimand and shushing. We are constantly deemed as “loud”, “annoying”, “uneducated” and other less friendly adjectives.

These objects are meant to allow a reconquering of this stolen sonic space – and they do so by also occupying physical space.

These are earphones made for up to six people to listen together. Since they are not full-on headphones, they yield room for the listeners to talk about what they’re listening to, thereby aggressively occupying both physical and sonic space.

Silencing is also a strongly gendered issue: despite all of the misogynistic saying that women talk too much, the exact opposite is true. In any social or professional gathering, men always dominate the conversation, but it is still women who are stigmatised when they dare to speak out.

This object is inspired by Julia Serano’s Barrette Manifesto. It explores how women are sometimes completely ignored in conversations – professional, social, etc. – and it is meant to confront that. Whenever a man talks over you, or when everyone completely ignores what you just said to then praise a man who says the same thing ten seconds later, this is what you do: you take it out of your head, repeat what you said on the embedded microphone, and the taser repeats it over and over again, increasing pitch and volume and reclaiming back the sonic space that was taken from you.

This is still an open collection of Objects, which means that more will eventually be added to this project.